


Worlds apart

by MissBrunetteBarbie



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25632910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissBrunetteBarbie/pseuds/MissBrunetteBarbie
Summary: The genie only offers three wishes. Lizzie is now stuck in a world where her sister is dead, war has broken out and her own mother doesn't know who she is.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	Worlds apart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laufire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laufire/gifts).



> Happy belated birthday to my darling laufire!! This took way too long, but sadly I didn't have much inspiration.   
> Since I know s1 episode 10 is one of your favourites, I decided on an fic where Lizzie got stuck in the third parallel universe.   
> One quick important thing to keep in mind: I imagine in the third universe things diverged from canon long before Hope's birth. So Caroline ran away the night she was turned, pretty much changed all the TVD plot. Jo didn't die before the girls were born, so a surrogate mother was never needed. I just thought the idea of Lizzie meeting a Caroline that doesn't even know of her existence the most interesting.

Lizzie’s head hurt. Tears were pouring down her face while the genie’s voice still echoed in her ears. 

Third and last wish. Good luck in the world you created!

It was her fault. Everything was her fault. How could she let herself be tricked so easily by a Malivore monster? Just because she had wanted Hope gone? How ridiculous! There were easier ways to take revenge on the girl. Like breaking up her relationship with that Muppet-haired boy or getting her in trouble at school.

But noooo! Elizabeth Saltzman had to be overcomplicated and melodramatic as usual. And now Josie was dead. Lizzie curled into herself sobbing, like she used to do as a little girl, wanting her mom to be there. 

The last thought was like an electrical spark, breathing new into her.

Mom! Of course, how had she not thought of it? Mom was still alive, as the newspaper had proved. And she was with Hope’s weird dad so maybe the two of them could help her. Mom had gone through so much during her high school and college days. She and her friends had even fought the devil and won. If someone could help Lizzie, it was her. It had to be her.

Now only to get out of the prison they had put her in. She looked at the door, it would be impossible to open it. Only if she had something to siphon. Or someone.

“Oh, Genie! I need to talk to you. Now!”

The blue creature appeared right away, looking somehow curious at being summoned again. It didn’t even try to correct the blonde about her title.

Lizzie didn’t waste her time, grabbed one of Ablah’s arms and siphoned her. The monster was too shocked to try and get away before Lizzie was done. 

“Thanks, genie, you can actually be useful. Who would have thought?”

Ablah gaped like a fish, but Lizzie ignored her. Instead she used the accumulated magic to blast the door to pieces. 

With a smug smirk, Lizzie simply walked away, leaving the other woman to watch in stunned silence.

“Wait, where are you going?”

The question was more bemused than any other thing Lizzzie has heard her say so far.

“To find my mother”

With these last words she turned her back on Ablah forever.

**  
Caroline Forbes was bored. Which was no easy fit in the middle of a war. Yet, for a no-humanity vampire, especially one as tireless as Caroline, things got boring fast.

It was one of the feelings she experienced most often, ever since she had ran away from Mystic Falls the very night Katerina had turned her. And good thing too, as she later found out Damon and Stefan would have had no problem staking her for the sin of dying with vampire blood in her system. She smirked as she thought of the fate that had befallen the Salvatore brothers. One of her best works, as Klaus called it.

Speaking of her wayward ‘husband’ (and how had the humans came to the conclusion they were married? Just because they were always together, didn’t mean they had tied the knot.) Caroline had to wonder who he had killed now. They had made front page again in the newspapers. Not that she would complain, but the drawings of her were always a bit off.

“You know, I can always send them one of my portraits I made of you, if you prefer.”

Caroline did not flinch, because it was too human a reaction, but she did the vampire’s equivalent of flinching: showing her monster features for just a second. The sentence had startled her because 1. she hadn’t realized she had spoken out loud and 2. Klaus had shown up out of nowhere.

“No, thanks. I would rather not see myself naked in the paper.” His sheepish grin did nothing for her mood. “What are you doing here? I thought you were human hunting or something.”

Klaus’ face darkened instantly, showing just how dangerous his mood switches could be.

“I got word that a witch is looking for us.”

Well, that was….uninteresting. Everyone was looking for them, including witches. Some of them had sided with the vampires after the Revelation while others had thought they could fight both the vampires and the humans at the same time, still clinging to the idea that they were nature’s servants and should not consort with the undead.

Her expression must have shown what she thought, because Klaus explained :

“This one is not a normal witch. She’s a child, sixteen or around that. And she’s a siphoner.”

“Siphoner?”

Caroline half-squeaked the word. She remembered all too well what happened when they had last run into this kind of witch. She had thought that she’ll never have to deal with one again. And now one was looking for her specifically? This was not good at all. But she was Caroline Forbes, she wouldn’t be scared so easily.

“Well, let’s go and see what she wants. It’s very rude to keep someone waiting.”

**  
In fairness, it could have gone better. Being tied up in a cellar by a bunch of vampire-werewolf hybrids (and what a shock it was to find the creatures from her mom’s stories were real in this weird parallel world!) was definitely a bad thing, but it could have been so much worse. She could only hope these guys won’t kill her before she gets a chance to meet Mom.

They probably wouldn’t. They were hybrids, so they must work for Klaus Mikaelson. And surely Klaus knew where Mom was. All the papers said they were married, for Heaven’s sake.(No, she will not think about the fact that she was Hope’s stepsister here. Hope didn’t even exist! … And it was all her fault).

The sound of footsteps on the stairs snapped Lizzie out of her thoughts. After what felt like eternity, someone was coming .

“Finally, do you let all your guests to wait this much?”

“You are not exactly a guest, my darling.”

Lizzie’s heart skipped a bit at the sound of Mom’s voice. It was familiar and comforting, yet foreign and distressing at the same time. The woman in front of her looked like the Caroline she knew, but at the same time lacked all her distinctive traits. 

As an adult stuck in a teenage body who had to look after an entire school, Mom has always favored office clothes in dark shades in order to look her actual age, not her supernatural one. This woman was however dressed in a strapless red dress that Lizzie actually envied her. Her eyes held none of the love or kindness the girl was used to see in Mom’s face when she looked at her and Josie. In fact, from the calculated gaze that seemed to focus not only on Lizzie, but on the entire room, she wondered if her theory about Caroline turning off her humanity was correct. 

Apparently, the vampire got bored with the witch’s silence as her hand curled itself around Lizzie’s throat cutting off her air.

“Why are you looking for me? And I advise you not to lie, I will be able to tell.”

Against her better judgement, Lizzie snorted. She had heard the last line so many times from Mom as a child, she knew it was a total lie. Caroline has never had any lie detector superpower, she just wanted her daughters to believe she did. It was almost comforting to know some things remained constant across universes. 

Her relief did not last long, as Caroline’s hold tightened making her cough desperately for air that did not come.

“I wonder if you are brave or stupid. I suggest you answer my question or I will assume you have nothing useful to say.”

Here’s the thing, Lizzie had planned exactly how much of the truth she would tell Caroline when she found her, but when she looked into the face of the woman to whom she had always run for comfort (even if it bore a much colder, foreign expression), her entire mind became blank. The teen told her everything.

To her surprise, the vampire listened patiently till Lizzie finished her (rather insane, she knew) story. When she was done, tears were falling down her cheeks to her embarrassment. But Caroline wasn’t even looking at her anymore but at something behind her. Or someone, as the next voice proved:

“She could have gone mad and is now seeking attention or she may be that good of an actress.”

Lizzie stiffened figuring out the other person in the room could be no one else but Klaus Mikaelson. She had never met the man, but she wasn’t exactly keen on having him as a spectator. 

“Ugh, some privacy, please!”

The two adults paid her no mind, choosing to have their own conversation.

“If she is the actress, I want to meet the writer. Me, pregnant? Let’s not be ridiculous here, Klaus. She’s clearly lying.”

Lizzie huffed quietly at the undeserved accusation, but didn’t say anything. If Klaus and Caroline wanted to ignore her she would ignore them back. And Lizzie was good at ignoring parents.

“There is certainly something odd here, love. Our little witch could have come up with a hundred more believable excuses, yet she told us this wild fairytale. Not to mention, she did not mention what she wants from us yet.”

Lizzie broke her own promise then:

“Because I don’t want anything from you, Sauron wannabe! I just… wanted to my mom, ok?!”

Both Klaus and Caroline looked at her like she was crazy, but hey, at least they were paying attention to her now. Mikaelson, in particular, was studying her like she was some rare species of frog. Lizzie’s glare intensified.

“She is not lying. I do think she doesn’t have hidden reasons besides talking to you, sweetheart.”

“Pff, are you a lie detector now? I don’t trust this witch at all. And I am certainly no one’s mother!”

The last sentence shouldn’t have hurt as much, but it did. Lizzie cursed the genie one more time in her mind.

Wait! This was it! Genies, of course, how could she be so stupid!

“I know how to fix this! I wasted all my wishes, but another wish can get us out of here. I just need to find a new genie.”

“You are sticking to the genie story?”

Caroline looked disbelieving, one eyebrow raised high (and since when could her mom do that, anyway?).

“Yeah, because it’s true. Surely, now that Malivore is public knowledge, you guys know there are more than vampires, witches and werewolves out there.”

Another look was exchanged between the two vampires. Lizzie was already exasperated by how easily they communicated without words. She would like to be included in the conversation, thank you very much!

Klaus maneuvered himself in front of the chair Lizzie was tied to. 

“You know there are some really big holes in your little story. The most glaring one is this Hope person. You are weirdly tight-lipped about her. Why was she so special that you risked allying yourself with a Malivore monster to get her out of your life.”

Ok, maybe she should have expected this. But honestly, the idea of telling Klaus that he had a daughter Lizzie had wished away seemed terrible overall. So, instead of answering, she went on the offence:

“Are you really going to interrogate me about high school politics or are you going to help. Hope is just…ugh, a girl I crushed on and hated her for it!”

Nobody looked more shocked at the last revelation than Lizzie herself. It wasn’t true of course, but even lying about a possible crush on Hope Andrea Mikaelson made her want to throw up. Probably better than telling an all powerful hybrid she had messed with his family in an alternate timeline, but not by much.

“Look, I know how to fix this, ok? We just need to find another genie and I’ll wish I never met Ablah and puff: we are all happy and safe.”

Another lie. In the real world, Klaus is dead and Caroline is…wherever Caroline wants. Sometimes Lizzie wondered if her mom was happier without her daughters. It was mean, it was petty, it was not unbelievable. 

Caroline grabbed Lizzie’s chin and the two blondes stared at each other for a long time. The teenager had no idea what her mom could see in her eyes, but Caroline’s revealed nothing; they were self-serving mirrors reflecting more of the world outside than on the person inside. Another thing that separated this woman from Lizzie’s mom. 

“You are adorable, little girl. You think the world can be fixed with a magic lamp and a wish.”

Her mocking tone did wonders for Lizzie’s already enraged spirit. Why was this mean, strange woman here, wearing Mom’s face, talking down to Lizzie in Mom’s voice? Lizzie needed Mom, not her.

“It can be fixed this easily, because this is how it was broken in the first place. By me! Don’t you understand?! I am responsible for everything that went wrong. It’s my fault and I need to fix it. And you need to help me, because NO ONE ELSE CAN, OK?”

By the time she reached the end of the sentence, she was shouting, but she couldn’t care less. Why were they so indifferent?!

“You think you broke the world?!”

Caroline’s laugh was as melodic as Mom’s, but hollower, like someone put all the pieces of the radio together, but forgot to adjust the frequency.

“The world has been broken long ago, before our war started. If the world was ever right, little girls wouldn’t wake up alone and scared looking for a mother that will not recognize them, for a family they do not have. “

“How do you know this?” was on the tip of Lizzie’s tongue. But Caroline wasn’t looking at her pseudo-daughter. She was far away, lost in her own memories. 

Lizzie felt a pang in her heart. She had wanted nothing more than to be like her mother and now she was, apparently. A stranger in her own home. Was this how Caroline had felt when she had been turned against her will at the age of seventeen?

“I know the world’s not fair, trust me, I really do. Dad and Hope proved it. But this? What I saw right now in this place is ….horrifying. And I can stop it. We can stop it. Make the world just a tiny bit less horrible.”

This time, it was Klaus who smiled, an oddly sad look on his face.

“The innocence and tenacity of youth. Truly remarkable. But I am afraid it won’t be that easy, sweetheart.”

“Yes, it will. If only you help me.”

No wonder Hope was so dense, if she took after her father. 

“Now, why would we do that? Personally, I much prefer the world as it is: full of chaos and anarchy, where humans tremble before us and there’s no more hiding in the shadows.”

Do not gape! You do not want to look like a fish!

But she couldn’t stop herself. Klaus couldn’t mean…. But it was Caroline that drove the knife in the wound.

“We started the war, why would we ever want to go back to the time before?”


End file.
